I’m a career coach, business consultant / organizational trainer and former Fortune 500 executive. Now that I've “been there, done that” with more than 20 years of experience climbing the corporate ladder, I'm sharing the career advice you need to excel and standout in your profession as a leader. I've authored the recently released book "Secrets of a Hiring Manager Turned Career Coach: A Foolproof Guide to Getting the Job You Want. Every Time", the award-winning book “Your Career, Your Way,” and I'm blogging for Forbes and The Seattle Times. You can connect with me via www.careerwomaninc.com. Circle me on Google+

How Your Social Media Profile Could Make Or Break Your Next Job Opportunity

My husband and I have trained our three daughters on the importance of posting only appropriate information on any type of social media. This includes not posting certain inappropriate pictures of Saturday night’s party on Facebook and not posting or Tweeting anything when they’re angry or in a bad mood. Now, managing your social media profile has become even more important – a 2012 survey demonstrates that your social media profile could make or break your chances of being hired.

According to the 2012 annual technology market survey conducted by Eurocom Worldwide, “Almost one in five technology industry executives say that a candidate’s social media profile has caused them not to hire that person.” Previous Eurocom Worldwide surveys had found almost 40% of the survey respondents from technology companies review job candidate’s profiles on social media sites.

While we’ve all heard about the increase in companies checking the social media profiles of job candidates, this survey provides the first evidence that prospective job candidates are actually being rejected because of their profiles.

Are you using LinkedIn as an electronic résumé?

Tips to build a positive social media profile and avoid being rejected by a potential employer:

Facebook: Always follow the old saying about not posting anything that would make you embarrassed if it were published on the front page of a newspaper. Don’t use Facebook as a forum to vent on everything you hate about life, your job, someone else, or a company – talk to a friend in person if you feel the need to vent. Some people recommend creating separate personal profiles – one for business and one for family and close friends only – but this is not recommended because it can be next to impossible to manage.

(Update: According to Forbes.com blog reader Jennie van Luptak, “creating dual professional/personal Facebook accounts is a serious violation of Facebook’s terms of service that could get you banned.” If you are worried about what potential employers might see, Jennie recommends you “segment your friends using lists” because it allows you to “control who sees what – your supervisor gets to see the interesting news story you shared but not the pictures from last weekend.”)

LinkedIn: Better for job seekers than Facebook is LinkedIn because you can create a highly professional profile by using LinkedIn as an electronic résumé. This includes writing a succinct profile summary, adding your current job information, past job experience, education, skills, awards, and even obtaining testimonials from previous managers, co-workers, or direct reports. If you author a blog that relates to business or your work, be sure to include the URL information. Then, you can encourage potential employers to review your information on LinkedIn.

With more and more companies jumping on the social media bandwagon, it only makes sense that searching social media for background information on potential job candidates will continue to grow. This will make it even more important that everyone actively manage his or her online persona.

Bottom line: Decide how you intend to use social media and to whom you will allow access (especially on Facebook). You don’t necessarily need to completely sanitize all your social media profiles – because companies want to hire real people (and some companies specifically look for creativity and personality). However, if you want to ensure a potential employer never rejects you, make sure your online social profile depicts the type of employee a company would want to hire.

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Good info in the article. Many people also create separate profiles in social media for personal and business. Making them private is an option too. In my opinion, a company fishing for info in someone’s personal life is a bit of an overstep but there are many common sense factors that also come into play. I especially believe that any company that would demand my password is way over the line. I would never work there and in fact, Maryland is the first state to actually pass a law making this practice illegal.

I agree that a company asking someone for a Facebook password is crossing the line into highly unethical territory (and illegal in Maryland, as you point out) – candidates should never agree to this request. Another tactic is when a company asks to “Friend” a candidate on Facebook so they can conduct research on the person. This second approach should also be carefully considered by the candidate as to their level of comfort with this request. My recommendation if that occurs is to steer the hiring manager to your LinkedIn profile instead (and always have this profile accurate, polished, and professional). If they press further, let them know you use Facebook for only family and close friends.

This is exactly how I manage my separate work and personal networks. LinkedIn for professional only; Facebook for personal only. I let personal friends also connect on LinkedIn, but I never let professional-specific contacts connect with me on Facebook – those folks I kindly redirect to my LI profile.

I am in total agreement with Maryland’s law in respect of this matter. I believe its an invasion of privacy. (That is why employers are able to hire, and likewise fire someone if they deem them unfit for the job). What the employee does outside their workplace is totally their business. As long as he/she is a law-abiding citizen and as long as his/her job performance is in good standard, the employee should have the right to oppose this very debatable and most unpleasant request.

I have always believed it, and still do – real companies “should not” judge candidates on their Facebook profiles. And I have a feeling (and nothing more than that, yet!) though they check out your profile, it doesn’t make or break your profile.

Why? Because real companies respect privacy! Do you not party? Go clubbing with friends? Have a whale of a time? Then again, don’t you click pics? Facebook et al are platforms to share such stuff with my social network. And in my social network, my employer has no space!

Why should I live in the constant fear that somebody is watching me? True, they already are, but they don’t really have the right to encroach upon what I call my personal space.

No seriously, why should I ‘make up’ my personal space for you? If you really want to see how I look when I’m drunk partying with my friends, why don’t you join us? Its ok if you wanna have a peek, but if you base your entire judgement of what I am or how I’ll be at work on that, then believe me – I don’t wanna work for you.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I definitely understand your negative feelings about an employer judging a candidate based on their Facebook profile. As a certified executive coach, I recommend my career clients have a highly professional profile on LinkedIn and that they steer hiring managers there, instead of Facebook. In addition to using LinkedIn as an electronic resume, you can also ask previous and current managers and co-workers to write you recommendations for the different positions you’ve held. In essence, this also lets hiring managers review your “references” and “reference letters” in an easy to read, online format all in one location.

I also have a master’s degree in human resources management and work on the other side, consulting with companies on growing their internal talent and hiring talent from the outside. In this capacity, I recommend employers focus on using LinkedIn profiles for potential candidates or review a candidate’s business/company profile on Facebook (if they happen to have one) in addition to the old-fashioned method of directly contacting references the candidate has provided. A company that asks for someone’s Facebook password is crossing into highly unethical and potentially illegal territory – and candidates should never agree to this request.

Thanks for calling this out. I’m encouraged by your reply – companies should focus on the LinkedIn profiles of the individuals rather than poking in the wrong places. Also, I totally agree with your other readers who suggested making optimum use of the facebook privacy settings. That’s usually very effective.

Finally my question to you is this : Why did you train your daughter to not post certain things on facebook, like those saturday night party pics? Those are for friends, right? Do you mean to say that though you advise companies to stick to LinkedIn profiles of the candidates, the trend of getting inside the candidate’s facebook profile is still very prevalent?

Good question about why we trained our daughters to post only what we consider as appropriate pictures on Facebook, e.g. cute pictures of having fun with their friends versus not so appropriate pictures of they/their friends at a kegger while holding cans of beer or drunk. The main reason is that posting things electronically tend to have a very long life because others can download those same pictures and share them in other forums.

Also, yes, another reason why we trained our daughters this way is that while I and many other consultants advise companies to review LinkedIn profiles of candidates instead of personal Facebook profiles, there is still a trend happening of employers using Facebook to research job candidates. While making optimum use of Facebook privacy settings can help, what people generally can’t control is how others (even friends) might use pictures you post after they’ve downloaded them to their own computer. This is why we have trained our daughters to be careful in what they share in any social media site, not just Facebook.

In many organizations, individual results are important, but the focus is on team results, so a woman interested in moving up the corporate ladder must be a woman who is recognized for her leadership capabilities and for being a team player on corporate initiatives. We’ve talked previously about the importance of building our network, having a solid reputation and creating a brand within our corporation and industry.

To be a winner, our attitude must show a passion for our business and an eagerness to participate in the vision. Our attitude about facing challenges and either embracing or rejecting opportunities is critically important; attitudes color everything we do.

Someone in my social circle was recently at a job interview where she was asked to connect to a company representative via Facebook so they could see her profile. She is 16 years old and does NOT have a Facebook profile, and proceeded to tell the interviewer this. The interviewer then, more or less, called her a liar and demanded she friend the representative on Facebook. This was a no win situation. She was upset because there was no way she could prove she did not have a Facebook, and the person interviewing her refused to believe that someone that age would not have a Facebook. It’s ridiculous nonsense if you ask me, and I feel bad that she had to go through such an experience at 16!